Radiologist participation in Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) accountable care organizations (ACOs) increased from 10.4% to 34.9% between 2013 and 2018, driven mostly by smaller ACOs, according to a new Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute study published in the Journal of American College of Radiology.
The researchers, led by Stefan Santavicca from the Georgia Institute of Technology, linked several separate datasets from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and found that 90% of large ACOs had participating radiologists in 2018. However, this participation rate is largely unchanged from 2013, when this rate was 88%.
At the same time, there were modest gains in the percent of medium-size ACOs with participating radiologists, increasing from 63% in 2013 to 66% in 2018.
In contrast, over this five-year period, the participation rate of radiologists in small ACOs increased twofold, from 26% to 52%.
Researchers said this growth in the percent of small ACOs with participating radiologists shows the penetration of shared-savings programs impacting radiologists even in settings that lack the urban, large, specialty-heavy ACOs that have greater capacity for coordinating care.
